For Mao: Essays in Historical Materialism

224 Pages·1979·19.076 MB·English

by  Philip Corrigan, Harvie Ramsay, Derek Sayer (auth.)

FOR MAO
FOR MAO
Essays in Historical Materialism
Philip Corrigan, Harvie Ramsay
and Derek Sayer
© Philip Corrigan, Harvie Ramsay and
Derek Sayer 1979
Softcover reprint of the hardcover ist edition 1979 978-0-333-22097-9
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1979 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in Delhi
Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos
Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Corrigan, Philip
For Mao
1. Communism - 1945-
I. Title II. Ramsay, Harvie
III. Sayer, Derek
335.43' 4 HX44
ISBN 978-1-349-03457-4 ISBN 978-1-349-03455-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-03455-0
This book is sold subject
to the standard conditions
ef the Net Book Agreement
By the same authors
SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION AND MARXIST
THEORY: BOLSHEVISM AND ITS CRITIQUE
Also by Derek Sayer
MARX'S METHOD
Also edited by Philip Corrigan
STATE FORMATION AND CAPITALISM IN ENGLAND
(with Michele Barrett, Annette Kuhn and Janet Wolff)
IDEOLOGY AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION
... he who never does anything never makes mistakes.
V. I. Lenin, 'On the significance of
militant materialism', 12 March 1922
Our European philistines never even dream that the subsequent
revolutions in Oriental countries, which possess much vaster
populations and a much vaster diversity of social conditions, will
undoubtedly display even greater distinctions than the Russian
revolution.
It need hardly be said that a textbook written on Kautskyan lines
was a very useful thing in its day. But it is time, for all that, to
abandon the idea that it foresaw all the forms of development of
subsequent world history. It would be timely to say that those who
think so are simply fools.
V.I. Lenin, 'Our revolution',
Pravda (1 17), 30 May 1923
Contents
Preface IX
Introduction XI
Chronology xvii
Abbreviations x1x
Part One: MAO AS A MARXIST I
I Introductory remarks 2
2 Epistemology: where do correct ideas come
from? 6
3 Practice I 5
4 Political and cultural relations 24
5 Production 34
6 Conclusion 4 I
Part Two: ON PRACTICE: FOUR STUDIES 45
I The Border Region years 45
2 The mass-line at work: the High Tide of
socialism in the Chinese countryside 6I
3 Bombarding the headquarters: the Great Pro-
letarian Cultural Revolution 75
4 Gramsci and Mao 93
Part Three: ON CONTRADICTION I I4
I Introductory remarks I I 5
2 Socialist construction in China I I 6
3 The international Communist movement I 23
4 Implications for socialist construction I 29
5 Postscript, I 977 I 34
Notes I4I
Bibliography I 63
Index 203
vii
Preface
We have discussed the origins of these essays in collective work in the
preface to the book which they complement: Socialist Construction and
Marxist Theory: Bolshevism and its Critique (Macmillan; Monthly
Review Press, I978, hereafter SCMT). Although what follows
stands independently of our other work, there is much to be gained
by seeing For Mao as an extension of it. Some of the ideas expressed
here originally formed part of the large typescript from which
SCMT was eventually distilled and our thanks must be recorded to
those who read that original formulation of our ideas.
We have indicated in our notes and bibliographies the texts
which we have used. Apart from the classics of marxism, we
acknowledge a special debt to the work of Charles Bettelheim and
Jack Gray. We would also like to thank Tse Ka-kui for his valuable
insights and Val Corrigan for preparing the detailed bibliography
of Mao's writings and for providing significant critical comments.
We have signified the overall purpose of our essays in the title of
this book.
PHILIP CORRIGAN
HARVIE RAMSAY
January 1978 DEREK SAYER
IX
Introduction
This work is explained by its title. For Mao: on behalf of Mao; an
intervention-given the circumstances, in fact, a presentation-of
Mao against alternative positions. What alternatives? Alternatives
within marxism, within 'Maoism' (a term as slippery and gauche as
'Stalinism') and, of course, within the vast apparatus of expertise:
China-watchers, sinologists, Friends of China, visitors ...
Moreover, these should be seen as 'Essays in historical mat
erialism'. Essays: not a continuous narration providing a compre
hensive story, but attempts, angles, representations, and glimpses.
Historical materialism: the continually expanding core of theory and
practice drawn from the explorations of Marx, Engels, Lenin,
Stalin, and Mao, amongst many others, in the light of the combined
historical experience of the international working class movement,
above all, within socialist social formations.
This intervention, these essays, are part of our work over the last
few years, especially SCMT, to which we refer those readers who
seek further elucidation of our fundamental positions on marxist
theory and socialist construction.
This is a work of theory. It is not a history. Nor is it a substitute for
the closest possible reading of Mao's own work. Mao Tse-tung lived
from 1893 to 1976 and, from the mid-1930s on, he wrote a series of
texts which demand comparison with the classical texts of historical
materialism. Indeed, his work, in quality and quantity, surpasses
that of several marxists who have been the subject of the closest
critical attention since the mid-1g6os. It is against that background
of plain ignorance that we write this book. It is for that reason that
we have chosen to provide a presentational account of Mao's
marxism.
It is worth drawing attention to this general lack ofs tudy of Mao's
work, and, indeed, to the dearth of serious historical work of
revolutionary China. There is, for example, nothing to compare
with E. H. Carr's excellent history of the USSR. The immediate
xi
Introduction
Xll
and obvious answer directs attention to problems of 'access'-to the
'language barrier'. But are there that many more fluent Russian
speakers, reading, for instance, Lenin in Russian? Ofc ourse not. But
that 'obvious' answer points us toward a possible solution to the
riddle of why so many marxists can remain happily ignorant of Mao
whilst consuming every word of Lukacs, Gramsci, Sartre, Colletti
and their epigones. If this seems a harsh judgement, scan a
representative sample of English-language (although the point
could be generalised) marxist journals over the last twenty years.
The obvious answer is one theory of Mao's marxism: that is, Mao's
alleged sinification of marxism -leninism. This is true, but partial
and trivial. As we have argued in SCMT, if marxism is not a dogma
but a guide to action which we learn in order to apply, we cannot conceive
of that learning without analyses of what Lenin described as
'concrete situations'. Indeed we would go further and ask that all
major bodies of marxist writing be related to the circumstances of
their original composition; we have attempted this with three essays
in Part Two of this book.
But in arguing against the 'sinification' thesis, we are not agreeing
with perhaps the largest group of commentators on Mao who
consider him non-theoretical, a pragmatic nationalist and a true
follower of former emperors. Our investigations show there to be a
number of enduring, persistent and above all theoretical strategies
which connect Mao's work to the mainstream of historical mat
erialism. That unity, moreover, is founded upon a political epi
stemology which we sketch in Part One.
Both the above distortions of Mao's inarxism can be summarised
within a more general view which sees (and implicitly dismisses)
China as Oriental or Asiatic. This view is particularly rampant
amongst those whose self-identifying label is 'Western marxism'.
Apparently there is but One Truth (which wears a European suit of
clothes) which must be transported from here ('the West') to the rest
of the world so that pure marxism may inhabit the globe. It is a view
which is widely shared. Recently the national security adviser to the
President of the United States, Zbigniew Brzezinski argued that 'a
Communist society is really a derivative western society because
Marxism is a western concept applied in semi-eastern societies'
(Times, 10 October 1977, p. 6). In short, we have been through this
tragedy before, it was called (capitalism's) imperialism. We
welcome the thousand gaps that have been made in its network of
exploitation and oppression.